


forget-me-not

by sakasamasa



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, One Shot, wacky coma dreamscape adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakasamasa/pseuds/sakasamasa
Summary: An alternate take on the events following the Marilith-incident, where Noctis has to find his way out of a dream-like world between life and death with the help of a strange fellow clad in black.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	forget-me-not

**Author's Note:**

> phew, am i glad to have finally gotten this out the door. sorry for any errors, i am actually illiterate and any writing i do produce is a completely accidental byproduct of the keysmashing process
> 
> this fic is weird. if you're expecting something that makes any sense at all, i'd suggest reading anything else.
> 
> enjoy xoxo eat ur greens, get ur vitamins n remember to wash ur hands at timely intervals lovely people.

Noctis feels like he’s falling, pulled beyond the earth and into unknown depths by unseen forces. It’s so dark as he sinks, he isn’t sure if his eyes are even open. The smell of burning rubber, the chill of an autumn night, even the dull pain of his open, bleeding back all become like static. In a way, it’s a mercy to so suddenly forget all the hurt, an emptiness unlike any other taking its place before it swallows him whole, taking everything away and leaving not a trace behind.

Then he’s spat out by the same darkness that had engulfed him not moments before, and he forgets the burnt rubber, the cold casting a rouge on his cheeks and nose and the warm blood seeping through his too-thin shirt. He sniffs the air, and finds that whatever he’s breathing in is neither hot nor cold. His fingertips graze over whatever surface he’s sitting on, but he feels nothing. The darkness doesn’t scare him nearly as much as the silence that boxes him in. He feels his lips move and his throat hum, but the “hello” he shakily casts out is never echoed back in his ears.

Ardyn sees the panic in the boy’s eyes, feels the rapid beating of a child’s heart pulse in his own chest, and steps out from the thick shadows of sleep with all the grace of someone not caught creeping like a viper in the grasses. Noctis startles as he watches a man at least three times his size flit into existence before him. The stranger’s dark coat almost melts back into the surrounding darkness, but the strange red hue of his hair curling out beneath a tacky fedora is a clear enough contrast.

Noctis would be scared if the vast expanse of nothingness around them both didn’t scare him more. The stranger takes off his hat and bows with a flourish, not nearly as respectfully as the grey-haired politicians in the Citadel.

“Prince Noctis. How honoured I am to finally make your acquaintance. My name is Adagium.”

Sentimentality has him using the alias. The boy won’t remember it, anyway.

He looks down at the last heir of the Lucian throne, barely containing the urge to sneer at the one who so resembles his little brother. In youth, the Prince looks softer, sweeter, but it wouldn’t surprise him if the Draconian’s divine machinations will have him facing off against the very same face that locked him up and left him to rot in Angelgard. Dark, blue eyes and glossy, black hair. A spitting image, save for unsharpened features and eyes lacking a specific sort of malice. Same, but different.

“Hello, Ada-gee-um,” Noctis mutters politely. “Do you know where we are?”

Ardyn takes a look around as though he’s just arrived despite knowing full well where he is.

“We’re in your dreams,” Adagium says then, though he knows this space is merely a grey zone between Noctis’ life and all-encompassing death.

“Huh?”

It’s not like Noctis doesn’t understand, but it takes a while to sink in. Even after a moment of careful rumination, he’s not convinced.

“What do you mean? I’m awake, though.”

“As it might seem, though I assure you, you are not, and there are people in the land of the waking eagerly awaiting your return. Your father must be worried sick about you after what happened, don’t you think?”

Noctis falls silent for a moment, scrunching up his face in frustration.

“What happened? I don’t…”

The smell of smoke fills the dead air, and Ardyn sees tire marks ripple in the empty distance. Headlights of a car thrown off the road blazing bright where the prince can’t see. Fear and dread pushes at his shoulders, and he realises it has been a while since he felt either of them.

“Mister, I’m…”

Scared, I know, he thinks. If not for the tightness in his chest, then for the way the prince fidgets with the hem of his shirt. Then, a shout echoes, and Noctis freezes up. He looks up, down, to the side and the other. Though he sees and hears not another sign of his father in the dimness, he continues to peer until Adagium takes a careful step forward and hunkers down to extend his hand to Noctis.

“Hear that? We’d best hurry and let him know you’re safe.”

“How?”

“It’s simple. To wake up, you need to dream. Come, I’ll help you along and then we’ll be on our way.”

Noctis doesn’t seem convinced, and it takes only a second before his eyes dart around the void around them just as he had done before.

“Princeling,” Ardyn redirects the boy’s fleeting eyes to him, coming to stand, “I can bring you home safe, but you’ll have to let me help you. Take my hand.”

Noctis stills, his shoulders stiff and unmoving until he caves, stands as well and reaches out slowly. His small hand barely grazes the other and suddenly there’s a change in the air. Ardyn lets his dreams spill, and colours burst like fireworks around them. Noctis yelps as he closes the distance between them, gripping onto Adagium’s scarves for dear life as the ground beneath his feet shifts and settles. A thousand stalks of wheat sprout from the soil, bursting from the ground like fountains and covering the earth like a golden ocean. Ardyn himself squints as the darkness opens to a sun’s light and piercing blue skies. In the distance he sees a thicket of trees lining the field like a wall, and even more so beyond the large shadows of snow-capped mountains form. He recognises this to be one of the more pleasant dreams, one he used to covet in the endless hours of darkness. Noctis is silent but his shoulders are quivering, his face and clawing fingers still deeply buried in fabric.

“It’s alright, Noctis.”

The prince pulls away, tears of fright in his eyes even as they widen in wonder. Ardyn feels the pleasant burn of sunlight on his clothed skin, and realises Noctis must be imagining it. Unlike the real sun, this one could never harm him. It’s pleasant.

“Where are we?” There’s a slight tremble in the prince’s voice, but he stubbornly pushes through it as he realises Adagium isn’t at all scared.

“A dream.”

Noctis blinks twice before he curiously surveys his surroundings. He takes a few steps back, looks up and down, runs his hand through the swaying stalks of wheat and then turns to Adagium again. All the doe-eyed fright is gone, in its stead a sort of amazed smile that mirrors the simpering brightness of the sun above. It’s infectious, and before Ardyn can stop himself, he’s smiling too.

“Woah,” Noctis breathes, “This is a dream?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never been to a place like this. Are those mountains? We don’t have mountains in Insomnia.”

Ardyn knows that, but he feigns ignorance. Let the boy have his fun while it lasts.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Noctis almost chirps in his newfound excitement, “But we do have really, really tall buildings. The Citadel is the tallest of them all, and I live there! Have you ever been to Insomnia?”

“I haven’t,” Ardyn lies, “Is it nice?”

At that, Noctis stills. He rubs his palms together, a little furrow in his brows. The wind rustles the field.

“I don’t really know. I’m not allowed to go outside much except for school, but dad said I’m allowed to go out on my own when I’m older. When I can protect myself. But sometimes my nanny takes me out to eat ice cream or pancakes after school with Iggy.”

“Iggy?”

“Ignis,” Noctis lights up again, “He’s my best friend! My dad told me we had to be friends, and he always comes along to pick me up from school. He’s super smart, but also pretty quiet. Not like Gladio. He’s kind of mean, sometimes. He’s also very tall; maybe as tall as you, Ada-jum. Maybe-“

Noctis hesitates, but picks right up where he left off.

“Maybe, when I wake up, you can come visit the Citadel and I can introduce you to them.”

Ardyn laughs quietly.

“Yes, of course. I would like that.”

Noctis was referring to Amicitia’s son Gladiolus, he surmises. The successor to Clarus Amicitia and future shield of the King of Light. He looks at Noctis and can’t rightly imagine what sort of king this child will grow up to be. Too soft, still. Much too innocent. Perhaps only time can tell what will become of this stifled little soul.

“Uhm… Ada… Mister? What’s happening?”

Noctis points, drawing Ardyn vision along an invisible line to the skies where the sun seemed to roll down into the horizon like a coin down a storm drain. The sky dimmed, a dark orange glow lighting up the field before dusk dawned. We shouldn’t be out at dusk, Ardyn hears it in his bones. It’s Somnus’ voice, somewhere in the deepening darkness. A memory surfaces. Two youths out past sunset, having forgotten the time as they slept in the abandoned homestead of a plague-ravaged village. Their scavenged spoils hastily gathered into their pouches, they hurry out into the falling night on the backs of swift chocobos. The fields hiss, a telling quiver going through the patches of wheat around them. Ardyn, Somnus cries out to him as he watches his chocobo fall silent in the claws of a savage daemon, trembling in the tall wheat. The sudden onslaught of memory jars him, throws off his carefully kept balance and composure as the world threatens to fall off its axis.

“Mister! Ada-jum!” Noctis is suddenly at his side with his arms outstretched as though to keep him from falling.

“Are you okay? Your face went all white.”

Ardyn can only see Somnus in those dark eyes. He wills the darkness from his face as it returns to its natural hue.

“Yes,” he lies again. “Princeling, I’m afraid we haven’t got much time left here. Do you see a doorway somewhere?”

Noctis’ eyes dart around, squinting to try and see clearly in the fading light.

“I see a light,” he says and points. Indeed, there’s a slight shimmer in the far distance, growing clearer as the night drapes an all-consuming shadow over the field. Adagium holds out his gloved palms to the prince.

“Wonderful. Hold on to me now, if we run we might not make it in time.”

Noctis takes the other’s hands tentatively and yelps as he’s hoisted up into the grasp of a shadowy figure. Suddenly the wind howls as it rushes past, and the hands holding onto him are more like claws. He thinks he sees great wings of black flutter behind Adagium, who has also gone as dark and shapeless as the night around them. Turning away from the cold, he sees the light approaching fast, and from up close it seems to be the thin line of bright white shining in from the crack of an opened door. The winged shadow carrying him puts him down in front of it, and Noctis already has his hands on the door before Adagium can urge him to open it. The door slides open with ease, and the two burst into the white light. There’s a click that resounds, shutting out the growling behind them. For a moment, Noctis feels his eyes burn as they adjust to the pale glare that shines through the windows. Slowly, shapes form. Desks, chairs, a chalkboard with crude chalk flowers and smileys in the corners. The attendance list clipped to the wall, a map of Eos next to the board, a clock and the empty storage at the back of the class. A crudely made poster of the last Founder’s Day Festival still hangs near the entrance, and the list for the class talent show still remains half-empty. Noctis remembers he wasn’t intending on participating, despite his teacher’s insistence; he wasn’t about to draw even more attention to himself. He turns to Adagium, who has gone back to normal.

“A classroom?” Adagium beats him to having the first word in. Noctis nods.

“This is my school. Moogle Elementary.”

The prince’s voice has gone almost timid now.

“You don’t sound too happy about it,” Ardyn comments. He surveys the area and finds nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

“People are weird here,” Noctis explains. He slowly walks over to his own desk, in the front by the window.

“They’re nice, but they’re also not nice.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’m the prince. Some kids think they’re better than others if they hang out with me, so I don’t really hang out with anyone anymore.”

“Did you tell your father about this? Maybe you should.”

Noctis ignores Adagium and opens the drawer in his desk, a little surprised to see nothing in it. Not even the candy wrapper he left in there last time. He brought it with him because he wanted the teacher to tell him off for it, because he saw another kid get the same treatment for eating a chocolate in class. The teacher only eyed him, but went on with her lesson as if nothing happened.

“Noctis?”

“We should go.” When Noctis turns to Adagium his gaze is comically hard for the buttony eyes that bear it. “Maybe… maybe we should look around and find another door or something.”

“Very well. Lead the way, prince. Perhaps we’ll find a door in a spot you prefer here. A place that is dear to you.”

Ardyn watches the boy ruminate until he lights up like a sunspot.

“I like the library. Maybe there’s something there. It’s at the other side of the building.”

Noctis leads the way as they traverse the empty, pristine halls of Moogle Elementary. Paper-mâché flowers line the windows like festive banners announcing the coming of a colourful spring, following their path all the way to a staircase Noctis climbs two steps at a time.

“It’s rather quiet, isn’t it?” Ardyn muses as he looks out the window they pass by, seeing a primly maintained courtyard lined with a tall fence at the far side. Noctis doesn’t turn as he answers.

“Yeah. Maybe everyone’s gone home already.”

His small footsteps echo along the stairwell until they reach the third floor. Noctis enters what Ardyn thinks might just as well be another classroom, only for it to reveal itself to be a small, rather dainty-looking library. A neat row of blocky computers atop the tables against the windows, and a vacated front desk near the entrance. Noctis walks along the carpeted floor with lighter steps, as though this part of the school is a little more home to him. He makes for one of the marked shelves at the back. Ardyn watches him as he follows.

“You often come here?”

“Kinda. The lady that works here is nice. She likes Ultima Raiders too.”

“Ultima Raiders?”

“It’s a comic book series. Iggy says I’m better off reading books without pictures, but comics are way more fun.”

The prince stops and turns near a set of vibrantly lettered, soft-cover spines. Tucked away in the shadows of the shelves and slightly hunched, he looks as though he might slip through the many lines in-between and disappear.

“Before winter break, miss Miriam said she would have the latest volume ready for me. I wonder if it’s here now.”

His index finger traces the one, two, three, four before it jumps to a golden eight. His eyes widen, but they soon turn hooded in disappointment when he takes the volume into his hands and flips it open.

“Well, that’s stupid. There’s nothing in here.”

Sure enough, the pages are blank. Ardyn looks around, a clock hung up high reminding him they don’t have forever.

“I don’t suppose the door to the next dream will be around here, then?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Is there another place you can think of?”

To Ardyn’s dismay, Noctis shakes his head. Adagium looks a little upset when he does, and Noctis feels like he has something to apologise for.

“I’m sorry. We- maybe, um, the front gates. Or something.”

Once again, they’re in the hallway, and the light of the sun has grown dimmer. The paper flowers now cast strange, trembling shadows on the floor. Noctis feels like he’s being watched by them, so he ignores them as he marches on, the clicks of his shoes echoing twice as loudly. He doesn’t turn back to Ardyn, who surmises that might be the best option judging by the growing darkness at the other end of the hallway.

“Ada-jum?”

“Hm?”

Their voices climb up the stairwell as they descend.

“Who’s Somnus?” Noctis asks.

“Why, he’s the Founder King of Lucis, no?”

“No, I mean- Back in the field, I… uhm… thought about a Somnus. Do you know him?”

“I’m afraid not.” Ardyn doesn’t miss a beat as he says it. If Noctis can feel what he feels to a certain extent, he wonders if the boy can sense he’s lying. If he does, it doesn’t show.

“Oh.” He thinks the prince almost sounds a little disappointed at that. “I think… he looked a little like me.”

“Really now?”

“Thinking about him made me angry, but also a little sad. That’s weird, right? Since I don’t know him.”

“Well, maybe you’ll know him one day. Dreams are strange like that, aren’t they?”

Right then and there, a grating, static jingle fills the empty air from unseen loudspeakers.

“Recess,” Noctis says after the noise abates. Then, “I think I know where we need to go. It’s-“

Ardyn sees the prince freeze on the spot, and it takes him a few seconds to realise Noctis ghastly look isn’t for him, but for what’s just slightly above him. He looks up the stairwell and sees the void-like silhouettes of children looking down at them both, their silence like death itself.

“Time to hurry. Are you sure we’ll find a door wherever you’re thinking of?”

Noctis nods, but only because he can’t afford to doubt now.

“Lead the way. I’ll be right behind you.”

The soles of sneakers tick and tock like a frenzied clock before the less harried thumping of boots as they make it to the ground floor. Noctis dashes past the classrooms and the closed auditorium, not heeding the shadows through the warbled glass that grow more defined with each step. The entrance reveal itself through the neat lines of the lockers in the front, a dying light shining through. He runs for it, but not before the shadows cast by the high shelves burst from the floor and grab at his ankles. He would scream, if not for the sudden exhaustion that threatens to pull his body down, down, down. Ardyn curses and harshly tugs the boy away from death’s claws, before he, without much regard for the hinges, kicks the front doors open. A swift touch of magic slams the doors shut and leaves the shadows splattering against the windows.

“Are you alright, boy?”

Noctis blinks, feeling as though he just woke up as he wills his unsteady limbs to settle.

“Um, yeah. What was that?”

“The same thing hunting us back in the field. Now, where did you think the next door would be?”

Ardyn hates losing his composure, but the only thing standing between death’s maw and Noctis being a set of doors is a little too disconcerting to disregard. Luckily, Noctis senses the urgency and is back on his feet before he answers.

“It’s a spot behind the gym. Near the old supplies closet.”

The doors rattle as a blackness starts to seep through the creases. Ardyn’s magic wanes against death’s hold and they both waste no time looking on as Noctis makes a head start for what turns out to be the gym building. He watches the boy disappear around the corner near the high fences of the school grounds, and for a moment he worries the shadows there, too, have already shifted, but when he sees the prince make his way to the end of the shrouded little alleyway, he follows with slight relief. He jogs past a row of faucets and a haphazard collection of cones, poles and gym supplies under a shutter before he reaches Noctis, who slows before an open metal closet.

Ardyn watches the boy as he kneels before it and make a soft clicking sound. He waits and watches in slight bewilderment before the clicking noise is returned by a mewl from within the closet.

“Meatball! Are you in there? I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you to eat this time!”

The door to the metal closet is pulled open with a screech. Ardyn sees Noctis peek in, a little unsettled by the nothingness he sees beyond the opened doors.

“Meatball?” When Noctis calls out, his voice echoes. “Woah!”

“Noctis!” Ardyn chases the boy’s back as it disappears into the closet’s depths, and he finds the inside is a lot more pleasant than he could’ve imagined. Bigger, too.

The doors close behind him with that same piercing shriek, but his attention is caught and held by marble-tiled floors reflecting white light from high, ornately framed windows making it seem as though the vast hall itself is shimmering. Noctis breaks the scenery with his black attire, coming to stand from where he thought Meatball would’ve been. Then he turns to Adagium, who looks marvelled by their surroundings. Noctis can’t say he feels the same.

“Where is this?”

“My house.”

“The Citadel?”

Noctis hums.

“But I don’t come here a lot. Nobody does.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s close to the Crystal.”

He points to a set of heavy doors at the far end of the hallway, ones that he knows lead to a tiny corridor that then leads to a circular chamber tucked away into the shadows of the Citadel’s towers. He’s only ever been in there twice, as far as he knows. It’s the only place in the Citadel besides the high rooftops and balconies he’s not allowed to go in and out of whenever he pleases. Not that he has any reason to. He remembers the eerie feeling of being pulled the last time he was near the divine object, the hairs on his arms standing upright and his back straight as though something was out to get him. His father looked tired afterwards, too, like he’d felt it too. Noctis surmised then and there that the Crystal, for all that it helped the people of Insomnia, was not something meant for people. He feels a stab of icy recognition as he looks up at Adagium.

“You… Do you know about it?”

“I’ve heard of it, yes.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone around to guard it right now. Do you… want to go see it?”

Noctis thinks it’s a little odd how his mind is caught between “yes” and “no”, in some way fearful of saying either even though he’s not the one who needs to answer. It shouldn’t matter, since it’s all just a dream, right?

Adagium then nods tentatively before he says it. Ardyn tries to subdue the trauma, something he thought he would’ve gotten over, considering everything he’s seen and done since. He finds solace in reasoning what he’s about to see will help in the war efforts. To know where and how the Lucians secured the Crystal, and how to get there.

“Yes,” he says, the word escaping him as uncertainly as he feared.

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

The prince looks at him with understanding. Pity. Things he loathes. There’s not a soul in this world that understands him, much less one that should pity him. Not even the all-knowing Gods above extended him that mercy. Not even his own blood.

“Let me see it.”

With one last look of worry, Noctis turns and leads the other through the large, empty hall to the other side. In all the previous tumult and silent awe, Ardyn barely remembers where they just came from. He looks down at Noctis, who looks up.

“…A cat?” He asks. It takes a few seconds for the boy to realise.

“Oh, Meatball? I found it during recess a month ago. It was hiding from the cold in that closet, so I gave it some food. My nanny said I couldn’t take it home with me, so I brought it food sometimes. Though, when it got warmer, I didn’t see it very often anymore.”

“That’s… certainly one way to spend one’s time. What were you doing out there in the first place?”

Noctis pouts in a way that’s now familiar to him.

“The girls kind of bothered me, asking me questions about my house and such, so I got away from them.”

Ardyn can’t quite catch a chuckle at the thought of little Noctis being pestered by his peers over such trivial matters and not standing up for himself, either out of cowardice or sheer politeness.

“What’s funny? They were being really annoying!”

“I meant no offence, Noctis. You handled the situation admirably.”

“What does that mean?”

“You handled it well, is what it means. I’m sure your father would be proud.”

Noctis stills at that, shifting his gaze to see they’ve already reached the second-to-last set of doors.

“I guess,” he says, “Dad tells me to never get into fights.”

The glossy, intricately carved wooden surface is just for show; two thick slabs of interlocked steel stand between them and the last corridor, though the prince soon finds that the mechanism’s been left unlocked and the unassuming handle gives in his palm. The doors are much, much lighter than they’d seemed outside the dream, and the corridor is in turn much, much darker. The armoured doors to the chamber are both open, light shining in like it’s beckoning them both. Inviting, but only for the lurking shadows it casts behind them. Noctis belatedly realises he’s holding his breath, and looks at Adagium. They’ve both gone quiet as they walked, and now even the sound of their footsteps is muted. Adagium’s face is unreadable, his expression mottled like there are too many things on his mind at once. Even as he thinks he should take hold of Adagium’s sleeves and suggest they go back, he walks on towards the chamber of the Crystal with empty, shaking hands.

There it is. The chamber is cavernous, its high walls holding nothing but the Crystal and the unfathomable structure that houses it to redirect its endless energy to the city beyond the meters-thick walls. There are windows of tempered glass in the ceiling, but the light they let in is nothing compared to the impossibly blue glow of the Crystal’s innumerable shards.

There it is. The thing that sealed his dreadful fate and cast him into endless despair. Ardyn tries to compose every bit of himself that wants to fall apart, from his racing thoughts to his very knees that threaten to give in with every step. It’s a dream. This is a dream, but every time he tells himself that, the notion slips further into the back of his mind. Worse still, the Crystal hums, flares up like it’s calling out to him.

“Ada-jum, what’s happening?”

Noctis has to cover his eyes then, as the Crystal’s tendrils of light lash at them with blinding sharpness. Stars fall like hailstones across his vision, with such force he can’t even see the back of his own hands. When the flashes finally die down, he opens blurry eyes to the ground that’s now made of a fine, carpet-like material. Through several blinks he makes out a much larger hall held up by massive pillars. There’s a muddy crowd of people surrounding them, broken by a set of stairs leading to… something he can’t make out. The world shifts and twists like it’s glitching, jumping from the chamber in the Citadel to this unfamiliar scenery. Then he looks over at Adagium.

Ardyn sees the white robes on him, casing him in like the white shrouds put over the deceased. Noctis is still there, by his side, but everything else is exactly as it was then. As it is now. His eyes climb the stairs, but at the top he can only see a faint blue glow offset by a painfully familiar, white silhouette. Her name won’t leave his lips.

“Ada-jum!”

A part of him regains its balance as he follows Noctis’ shout to the figure coming to stand before them. Somnus looks just as he did then, his eyes steeled and unkind as he draws his sword. Ardyn thinks, despite everything, that it’s not unlike him at all. Just as he did then, he refrains from drawing his sword, though the millennia of hatred built up makes him wonder why.

“Stop! Don’t hurt him!”

Noctis, the foolish whelp, stands in his little brother’s path as though he could deflect the strike of a no doubt recently sharpened sword. With a reverberating clang, Ardyn meets Somnus’ blade before it can harm Noctis. Somnus’ eyes are empty.

“Not above cutting down children, now? And you would deem _me_ the monster!”

“If it meant to rid the world of the Scourge, I’d do what has to be done.”

“Still you pretend as though your petty jealousy warrants the will of the Gods.”

A blue haze permeates the air, seeping into both the light and the darkness like blood into soil. Somnus’ sword-arm grows stronger, nearly overpowering. He was always the stronger one, anger-driven and prideful. Ardyn could never let him lose, either. Perhaps that’s where he went wrong, too.

“Still you toil for justice. Ardyn, your revenge means _nothing_. Your efforts to save our people meant nothing. The Gods favoured me. There is no winning in this, not for you.”

Ardyn can barely keep his footing after he’s roughly thrust back. He watches his brother ready his sword for a killing blow, and finds himself powerless to stop it when his sword flits out of existence. His vision fills with blue.

“No!”

Noctis watches as the stranger’s sword pierces Adagium’s chest with horrifying ease. Adagium slumps against the blade, suddenly seeming smaller, more so when the stranger harshly tugs the sword out and he drops to his knees. Noctis casts away his fears and rushes over to the other, trying to keep him upright with what little strength he can muster.

“Ada-jum!”

Noctis sees the gaping wound stain his robes an inky black, continuously flowing until all the white is gone. Adagium remains unresponsive, his eyes wide but unseeing.

“Ada-jum! This is a dream, remember? It’s not real. You said so! Please say something.”

Frustration sends tears welling into his eyes as he tugs and tugs at the stained robes to no avail. Adagium’s eyes water, too, but what rolls down from them is black like his blood. Noctis thinks it might be some kind of poison, but he can’t let go now.

“L-Let’s go find another door. Please, before that guy comes back and hurts you again.”

Ardyn doesn’t quite know where he is. He feels an icy cold spreading from his chest, and something pawing at his shoulders. His muddled vision grows clearer, though it takes a few seconds before he realises the stark blue eyes he’s staring into are the prince’s. The boy looks ghastly, scared beyond belief.

“Ada- uhm, Ardyn! Come on! Let’s go!”

That’s odd. He can hear the other, wants to reassure the other, but his voice sticks to his throat and his limbs feel rusted and withered. When he finally manages to raise his hand to the other, Noctis takes it and tugs to beckon him upright. Though he barely manages, with two booted feet he eventually stands, his robes grazing the floor. The first step is clumsy and threatens to make him fall back down, but Noctis pulls him along all the while.

The red carpet beneath them guides their way, breaking the blue before it falls away beneath their feet. Noctis gasps at the sight, but runs on until the floor turns back to marble. The pillars seem to follow their steps, though the world beyond them shifts rapidly like cycling through a dozen photo’s on a camera. Ardyn can barely catch them through blurry eyes and a dazed mind, but Noctis can see all of them come and go like fireworks of colour and sound. Orchards with ripened orange fruits under a blue sky, ruins of ancient times, savaged towns left desolate by the Scourge and empty palaces not unlike the Citadel. The same golden field they had traversed, blooming and withering in winter only to bloom again in spring. Noctis runs until the breaths he takes start to hurt in his lungs and his feet start to ache, but he never stops and never lets go of Adagium’s hand. He never looks back, either, too focused on what’s in front of him to notice he was outrunning death itself with his own two feet. Ardyn, back into his own in the cacophony, follows the boy into the unknown depths of his own dreams. He tries not to look at the lifetime of his own memories flashing by, past a lifetime lived, a lifetime given and cast aside, so he keeps his eyes on Noctis until the boy himself stumbles from exhaustion. He then hoists the boy into his arms and on they run.

“Don’t look back, Noctis,” he says, but there’s no telling the prince will heed his words.

Finally, after what feels like far too long, the high pillars ahead grow shorter and shift. The marble branches out and twists, until their cracked white lustre turns an earthy, wooden brown. The light settles for the gold of a dying sun, filtering through the trees and the leaves that sprout above. Shrubbery springs up from the ground, rustling with the hush of the wind and startled woodland creatures making way for them.

Ardyn slowly comes to a stop when a silence overtakes the woods. He breathes a sigh of relief, endlessly grateful for an end to the torture.

“Well, that’s over and done with.”

He slowly puts Noctis back down, who doesn’t step away when his boots meet the soft earth. Instead he wordlessly moves in closer and pushes his face into Ardyn’s shirt, taking a firm hold of the scarves draped down the sides. His first instinct is to gently usher away the other, but then he feels the echoes of shock and sadness racking the boy’s body, far too heavy for a child to handle.

“It’s over now, Noctis. The worst is behind us.”

Noctis starts to sniffle against his best efforts, and the hand on his shoulder only makes it worse.

“I’m tired,” he mumbles into the fabric.

“I know.”

“I wanna go home.”

“I know.”

It only takes Ardyn a glance to notice, tucked away in a spot where the ground itself seemed to have split and shifted, the roots of a great tree framing a black door. There’s a plaque on the door, glinting in the light.

“…Perhaps we’re not so far from it now. Look.”

Noctis pulls away with a hand rubbing at reddened eyes and regards the door with a look of surprise.

“That’s…”

He makes his way towards it, fallen leaves crunching beneath his feet. The plaque reads his full name in loopy letters. He turns back to Adagium, who nods. Noctis sees the blackness lingering like soot beneath his eyes, but doesn’t mention it.

The door handle clicks. For a moment, Ardyn ponders whether he should follow, but it seems Noctis is waiting for him to enter. He feels an immense sense of familiarity as he crosses the threshold, and when he turns to the prince the wide smile on his face is no surprise. The room is, by all accounts, something he could’ve expected of young royalty. Various toys are strewn across the floor, a cupboard boasts piles upon piles of books and a small television by the bed reflects the interior of the room. Noctis is so relieved to be back here. Home. Ardyn finds himself smiling as he shares the feeling.

“Cozy,” he comments, noting the lack of any other doors around. The digital clock by the nightstand tells him it’s 8:20 p.m. and wonders if that’s relevant in any way.

“Rather late, isn’t it?”

Noctis follows his gaze and sees the clock.

“Oh. My dad comes to tuck me in around this time.”

“Every night?” Ardyn, for all the bitterness he carries, can’t deny it’s a comfort to know Noctis has this. He has an inkling the Gods’ second sacrificial lamb will not live a quiet, peaceful life. Not as long as he, the Scourge, the Gods and all destined things continue to exist on Eos, anyway.

“Yep,” Noctis answers before a sizeable yawn interrupts his giddy gloating.

“Well then, to bed with you. Wouldn’t want your father catching you up past your bedtime.”

Noctis’ face scrunches up just slightly.

“So I’m going to sleep to wake up? Won’t I just start dreaming again?”

“Trust me. Dreams are strange like that, aren’t they?”

Noctis hums with a smile like they’re sharing a secret. Ardyn thinks, after all, there might be a little mutual understanding there. He hopes he can get to feel this again, someday, when Noctis is a little older and the playing field is levelled.

He watches the prince kick off his dirt-stained shoes before he lifts the heavy covers, very much ready for bed, it seems. Once cocooned to his liking, he turns around to look at Ardyn with a questioning look, who crouches to meet the prince.

“What about you, Ada-jum? Are you gonna wake up too?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be there when I wake up?”

“Not quite, but I’ve no doubt we’ll see each other again soon enough.”

Not that Noctis will remember anything that transpired in his dreamscape, which might be for the best, considering all he’s been through and all the things he rightly shouldn’t have seen just yet. Perhaps, the way the boy frowns then is a sign that he knows this too.

“…Will you be alright?”

Ardyn won’t forget, however. Not the boy’s unbearably boundless sympathy, the sensitivity that’ll surely be trouble for him down the line nor the unique kind of bravery that he has found hard to come by in most people.

“Will you?” He shoots back.

Noctis flashes a sleepy smile and nods, his eyes already fluttering shut. His hand slips out from beneath the covers, grabbing at air before its caught by one that is larger and colder, but not unpleasant.

“Goodbye, Ardyn.”

“Goodbye, Noctis.”

—

He wakes up with his other hand held by one that is warmer in a bed in Tenebrae, a vague whisper of a strange man in black and a field of gold slipping from his mind like losing a fish in water, the tail-end of a fluttering scarf disappearing into the depths of forgetting, never to return to him again.

—


End file.
